fiesta

Forms

fiesta f (plural fiestas)^[1] Berceo's own form seems to have been the more learned festa, though fiesta also appears in his Milagros.^[2]

Etymology

It is a semi-learned word, inherited from Late Latin festa, originally the plural of festum (“feast, festival”), the neuter of the adjective festus (“festive”), which is related to feria.^[2][3][4] Corominas calls it a semi-learned word that soon became popular.^[3] The initial ⟨f-⟩ did not become ⟨h-⟩ as it usually does: Corominas explains it by the church use of the word, and Wiktionary calls the reason unclear, perhaps a learned colouring.^[2][1] Late Latin had a short vowel, ⟨ĕ⟩, against classical fēsta.^[1][3]

The same Latin word is Portuguese festa, Galician festa and Catalan festa.^[5] The related festín, festival and festejar were taken from French, English and Catalan.^[2][3]

The adjective belongs with the plural noun for “religious festival”, from Proto-Italic *fēs-to-; de Vaan traces the group to a Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁s- “religious gift, rite”, the root of Ancient Greek θεός (theós, “god”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the word first in the Disputa del alma y el cuerpo, at the beginning of the 13th century.^[2][3] DEMel lists the Liber regum (1194–1211) among its earliest records, and DICCA-XV gives 1196 as the CORDE's first date.^[7][8] In Berceo's Milagros the fiestas cabdales are the chief feasts of the Church.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish fiesta was both the church feast and joy or amusement: the General estoria of Alfonso X tells how the people of a land held grand fiesta, and Alfonsine legal prose defines a feast as an honoured day on which Christians must praise God.^[10] Old Spanish fazer fiesta meant “to flatter” and tener fiesta “to enjoy oneself”.^[11] Covarrubias in 1611 noted that hacer fiestas was said of public rejoicing, and that the Church called its Sundays and saints' days feasts.^[12] In the second part of the Quijote, tengamos la fiesta en paz asks that the festivity not end in a quarrel.^[13]

The Diccionario de Autoridades put rejoicing first and then the fiesta de guardar or de precepto on which Mass must be heard.^[14] The Academy's 1884 edition added the joke and the fuss a dog makes of its master (el perrillo hace fiestas).^[15] The modern senses add the public holiday and the party.^[4] In Spain la fiesta nacional is the bullfight.^[16] American Spanish has the Fiestas Julias and Fiestas mayas of Argentina, and many local feasts, from the Bolivian fiesta de comadres to the Colombian corralejas.^[17][18] English took fiesta by 1835, of a festival in Mexico.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Disputa del alma y el cuerpo.^[2][3]
• c. 1230–1260 – Berceo uses both festa and fiesta.^[2][11]
• 1272–1275 – the General estoria uses fiesta for rejoicing.^[10]
• 1528 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin festus.^[12]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines rejoicing and the fiesta de guardar.^[14]
• 1835 – English fiesta, of Mexico.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology “Del lat. festa, pl. de festum”.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A holiday: a day on which some occasion is celebrated and offices and many shops are closed.^[4][1]
2. A day the Church celebrates with special solemnity; the feast day of a saint.^[4][1]
3. Amusement, rejoicing.^[4]
4. The events organised for the enjoyment of a group or a community; in the plural, a series of days of celebration: las fiestas del pueblo.^[4][16]
5. A party: a gathering of people to celebrate something or to have fun: Organizaron una fiesta en casa.^[4][1]
6. (colloquial) A joke, a bit of fun.^[4][15]
7. (in the plural) Signs of affection, such as a dog's for its master.^[15][21]

Word family

• aguafiestas
• fiestear
• fiestero
• enfiestarse

Related words

• festejar
• festín
• festival
• festividad
• festivo
• feria
• Latin festum
• Portuguese festa

Usage notes

Set phrases include fiesta de guardar or de precepto, a day of obligatory Mass, aguar la fiesta “to spoil the fun”, and tengamos la fiesta en paz “let's not quarrel”.^[22][1][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 893
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fiesta
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. fiesta
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 2751
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. fēriae
7. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. fiesta
8. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. fiesta
9. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 370
10. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. fiesta
11. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 259
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 844
13. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 527
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 747
15. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 495
16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fiesta
17. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 211
18. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. fiesta
19. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com, p. s.v. fiesta
20. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. fiesta
21. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. fiesta
22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. fiesta